One of the great operatic images of the last two decades or so comes in the final act of Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s 1999 staging of Wagner’s last opera Parsifal. It is journey’s end for the fool made wise…
The “Infernal Dance” goes on. But in this the second instalment of the Philharmonia Orchestra’s well-named Bartok series it was Stravinsky who ultimately called the tune and dictated the footwork. A thrill-packed performance of The Rite of…
Some collaborations are just meant to be. Bringing David Zinman and the OAE together made for the best kind of mutuality: Zinman’s acute ear and cleanness of execution; the orchestra’s arresting character. In short, the pristine Zinman…
A cinema screen greets us. So either an unscheduled HD Opera Cast is in the offing or director Mike Figgis is making no pretence of flaunting his cinematic credentials. But Lucrezia Borgia – the movie – is…
Elgar’s The Kingdom arrives in the heat of inspiration on a surge of orchestral magnificence. A glorious theme representing “New Faith” is announced in the strings, as noble and aspirational as anything Elgar wrote. If his own…
The Los Angeles Philharmonic seemed to bring all the shiny surfaces of their spanking Disney concert hall with them to London. Their tour opener – John Adams’ Slonimsky’s Earbox – was a Californian dazzler. Talk about arriving…
The Austro-Hungarian connection loomed large but it was the Hungarian bloodline which bound this typically shrewd Vladimir Jurowski programme – and out of the Trannsylvanian twilight came Peter Eötvös like a latterday Bartok. Shadows owes much to…
Fashion is a strange thing. There was a time when the César Franck Symphony was popular core repertoire. All the greats performed and recorded it – Monteux, Bernstein, Karajan. Suddenly it was out of vogue – obsolete,…
Ten years is a lifetime in singing and since his London recital debut, courtesy of Ian Rosenblatt, Juan Diego Florez has achieved superstar status in that highly specialised corner of the bel canto repertoire demanding suppleness and…
Valery Gergiev’s survey of the Tchaikovsky symphonies began here on a chilly January night with youthfully idealistic “Winter Daydreams” thrown into the sharpest relief against a disillusioned and angry Shostakovich whose own journey into the bleak mid-winter…